Another "light switch" moment

Thin wispy clouds glide past the waxing moon. A longstanding storm system that has delivered the first green shoots of vegetation clears out. Birds chirp with the dusk of night. Water trickles in the creeks along both ends of my periphery.  One hundred more red and white pine saplings have found their roots in new soil around the property.  A whippoorwill chants in the distant-spring is finally here!

It has been almost ceramoneous around here. In the last couple of weeks we have successfully installed a washer and dryer as well as a dishwasher!  In a way it completes a main objective of the project- to build a home from raw land to all the standard modern comveniances. It's funny- I think a lot about the "light switch" moment when electricity first surged through the outlets and lights. This enabled us to jump into the modern world of long lights painting and making wood cuts without a generator. We moved in and lived quite a while without running water. That in itself is something that most Americans find foreign. Oddly enough it didn't really impact our quality of life all that much. It just took longer to do the dishes.  Then came water. While the amenity of having warm running water at the turn of a facet was certainly convinient it wasn't nearly as sentinel as electricity is facilitating ease to our lives. The nicest thing then was the ability to take a long hot shower at home after a hard days work. It still wasn't a "light switch" moment. Even with water flowing from a faucet it took lots of time to wash the dishes- sometimes even more because it incentivized the use of more dishes. 

Then came the dishwasher!  This is the first time since we realized the full breadth of electricity that modern  technology revolutionized our lives!  We can now load it up an walk away- off to weed the garden, go for a hike, read a book, whatever. It doesn't matter- hardly any time is spent doing what had been a major daily investment of our time. The washer and dryer- all of a sudden we could dry that soaked pair of pants or perform an emergency cleaning of a toddlers soiled britches!  

Our time can now focus on some truly finer points of life. Another "light switch" moment...

Soft thawing ground, rushing water, long days and chirping birds engorge my senses. Coals from a burn pile that was ignited nearly two weeks ago still puff smoke into the air. Heavy, slushy snow falls as the apple trees in the orchard bud and rhubarb burst their brilliant rose red sprouts into the spring air.  Spring on the north shore...

Osier Creek is flowing.  Robins and northbound geese are in the air. The snow shoe hare have begun to turn brown.  Our apple and cherry trees show their first blossoms. 

It's a stretch

It's as if my body felt the warm spring sun from under our winter down comforter. I awoke to the chirping of the Chickadees at my front feeder and didn't spare a moment during my breakfast of coffee and eggs. It was simply too perfect of a well-deserved spring dayto stay indoors!

Outside in my baseball cap, hooded sweatshirt, pac boots and snowshoes I planned the day.  The main objective was to cut a few rounds of firewood to supplement our dwindling supply. We were burning an unprecedented amount of wood and needed to once again dwelve into our reserve stock of poplar.  

The problem was that the reserve pile was still under four feet of snow!  So I started digging.  After some time I was able to locate the tarp that draped the supply and began shoveling my way to a point where I was able to start lifting the tarp and exposing the wood. Slowly but surely I dug, chipped and lifted the tarp to a point where I was standing on the logs. Somewhere along the way my efforts shifted the weight of the stacked logs.

The feeling of success quickly diminished when I realized that my right foot was firmly lodged between a couple of logs that had shifted!  I was stuck.  My only hope for freedom was to untie my boot and try to wiggle my foot free. However, Every attempt to get my hands within reach of my boot laces failed by less than an inch.  Simply put- I was not limber enough to get my hand down to where my boot was and untie the knot. Worst of all I was home alone, without a phone in my pocket and the neighbors were no where to be heard!  The only thing in reach was a thermos of hot coffee. Not bad- but out of reach was a chainsaw, shovel, splitting maul and jacket. All of which I could surely benefit from in such a predicament as this. 

I soon realized that I had few options. The simplest variable to change in order to help my circumstance was the fact that my body couldn't make the stretch to reach the boot laces.  In te back of my mind was the fact that I didn't even know if I did get my foot out of the boots that I would be able to get out. It was my only option. 

So I started stretching.  I did every back stretch that I could think of.  I would stretch for a few minutes, try to reach, fail, rest, sip some coffee and stretch. At least it wasn't thirty below!

Finally, after an hour or so my fingertips could reach the loop of my knot!  I stretched a few more sets and was able to get my had into the hole and started to fenagle the knot undone!  It worked!  My foot slipped right out of the hole. Hopping on one booted foot I gave the logs a few bangs with the splitting maul and extracted my misguided boot.  

Clearly a little shaken from the experience I hobbled my way back inside, stoked the stove, brewed another pot of coffee and put my phone in my pocket!

The only visible light is low.  Large snowflakes gently fall.  Balsam fir boughs droop under the weight of a early spring snow fall. The greying waning light darkens the background into black. 

Four feet of snow cover the forest. More than a foot has already melted. Snow has consistantly fallen for four months. The temperature has bitterly remained below freezing. The first freeze thaw did not occur until a week ago.  As a result the snowpack accumulated as one homogenous layer of deep powder. There are times when one would fall through the entire depth of snow from the top to the bare ground while wearing snowshoes!

Now, because of the first freeze thaw cycle, this incredible base of snow has encased itself. It's now a four foot tall platform rising above the forest floor that one can swiftly snowshoe or ski. 

The deer have congregated along the shore where the steep warm spring sun has exposed the steep southern facing patches I grass.  They nimbly maneuver the steep rocky outcrops nibbling whatever remotely edible swatches of vegetation that have flung on tithe talus through the winter. 

There's a full moon rising under a warm march night. 

I wish I was a painter; attempting to find a tone and hue

For each and every fading flash of light. 

Winter Descent

Breaking trail in March is a good thing. For one it means that you are headed Into terrain where only critter have been in months.  Most of all, however, it means that you will trample a fresh trail. In the case of today's trail it meant five feet of uncomprosmised adventure down one of the north shore's steepest yet under-explored canyons.   

We live in the north. Our backyard gives away to nothing- just endless wilderness. This has been a real winter. Our daughter looks out this window, spots the snowblower and goes"geeeeer"; imitatating the only means of carving our way into town. 

The winters here are long.  We spend much of our time biding our time: streaming acoustic ensembles that make Jerry Douglas and Steve Earle cry, cooking food that folks pay fifty bucks a plate for.   Have you ever tried grilling a piece of chicken theigh at thirty below?  It takes a while bit It's all worth it.  We're just waiting to cash in on the next glorious wilderness mile that awaits us down our trail.  Why- because that next mile will most likely glide on by tomorrow.  Accessibility, just like possession, is everything. 

If you look close you can see the advancing lake ice working it's way west against the western winds.  

Despite its northern geography, Lake Superior rarely completely freezes over.   Yet the prolonged arctic weather that has characterized this winter has fostered the unrelenting advance of lake ice.  Prominent westerly winds leave the north shore of Minnesota the last to freeze. Stiff winds and a deep basin result in a longer period of time (and/or colder temperatures) it takes for the north shore of Minnesota to freeze.  Nonetheless this winter weather has prevailed to accomplish such a feat!

With a dying population of wolves on Isle Royale, the hope was that the lake ice could provide an opportunity for "mainland" wolves to cross the ice andix up the genetics of the current dewindling pack.  Unfortunately that road goes both ways. One of the last remaining fertile females was found dead on theainland after an apparently overwhelming crossing back.  

Digging into the "reserve" wood pile.  

By most indications this has been the coldest winter in 35 years.  My depleted wood supply coraborates that fact.  A few weeks ago (with temperatures thirty below) I packed a snowshoe trail up to my reserve stash of dried firewood.  Digging it out of four plus feet of snow took another hour or so but I finally got into into and was able to cut another few weeks worth of wood. I intend for this extra bit to supplement our supply in the upcoming spring.  

It has been a particularly bitter winter for the deer.  With five feet of snow in the woods and more nights twenty below zero or less for almost four months the herd has certainly been thinned.  At night they will bravely eat out of the bird feeder at our window. They are basically relegated to walking roads and snowmobile trails.  The snow banks along the driveway were taller than the deer above. 

A southern breeze blows.  Trail miles have been hard to come by. It has been a few days since the last snow and frigid temperatures have locked up the packed trails into an uneven and slippery surface.   Still the high spring-like sun is beginning to melt the southern facing roads!